


A Slight Miscalculation

by doctorhelena



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Awkwardness, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Happy Ending, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Steggy Secret Santa, Steggy Secret Santa 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 19:16:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17209370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorhelena/pseuds/doctorhelena
Summary: An unfortunate misunderstanding, an awkward Christmas mission, and a happy ending.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spaceshipdear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceshipdear/gifts).



> This is my Steggy Secret Santa 2018 gift for the lovely and talented [founderofshield](http://founderofshield.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr (aka [spaceshipdear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceshipdear/pseuds/spaceshipdear) here on A03.) I hope you're having a wonderful holiday season!

Clearly, Steve concluded once the dust had settled, he still didn’t understand how to talk to women.

One minute he’d been racing after the Valkyrie as it roared away from Schmidt’s stronghold, and the next, or so it seemed to him, he’d awakened in the infirmary of the American base in Reykjavik with the worst headache he’d had since Camp Lehigh. The incredulous army doctors had told him to count himself lucky, that the blow to his head alone would almost certainly have killed an ordinary man. As it was, by the second day he was well enough to be sent back to London on a transport plane with a nearly perfect bill of health.

Nearly perfect, because he still couldn’t remember what had happened before the crash.

He remembered chasing after Schmidt’s plane on foot as it thundered down the runway, already off the ground, then Peggy and Colonel Phillips screeching to a halt in one of Schmidt’s cars, motioning to him to jump in. And nothing else until he woke up in Iceland. It was pretty obvious, though, that he must have jumped into the car, and from there onto the plane. It was the only way he could see that he could have ended up on board.

The doctors in Reykjavik had tried to jog his memory by playing him the carefully vetted transcript of his transmissions from the Valkyrie. Steve had listened, frowning, to his own oddly distorted voice as he told Peggy that Schmidt was dead, announced that he was going to have to put the plane in the water, then read out the coordinates he’d managed to find on an intact portion of the control panel.

Peggy’s voice had been carefully steady, deliberately calm, but he could hear the tiny tremor that betrayed her, and his breath caught in his throat as he listened to her trying not to cry, distracting him with an impossible fantasy until the radio went dead.

For a moment, he imagined going through with it. Taking her dancing a week next Saturday, although it couldn’t possibly be at the Stork Club in New York. But - Peggy had made the date when they’d both been sure he was about to die. He knew perfectly well she wanted to wait until they could safely be distracted by each other without risking the fate of the world. Personally, Steve had never been convinced that actually kissing her could possibly be any more of a distraction than constantly thinking about kissing her, but the war was nearly over now. They could wait a bit longer, even though sometimes it felt like either one of them might spontaneously combust in the meantime.

He’d half-hoped Peggy would meet him at the airfield, but it was Howard Stark who greeted him upon his return to London, peppering him with rapid-fire questions about the Tesseract which he was entirely unable to answer, despite Howard’s best efforts to jog his memory all the way back to SSR headquarters. Peggy wasn't waiting there either, but the Howling Commandos were, meeting him with spirited claps on the back and a lot of good-natured ribbing about faking his memory loss to get out of what would otherwise be endless debriefs about his time on the Valkyrie.

He was debriefed nonetheless, of course. Colonel Phillips glared at him over his desk for a full minute before shaking his head and asking him what he remembered.

“Nothing from after I jumped onto the Valkyrie,” said Steve, a little tired of constantly repeating this to everyone, and Phillips gave him a look he couldn’t quite interpret.

“Then you’ll understand when I say that there is a time and a place, Rogers, and I hope never to witness a breach of protocol like that from you again. There was an extremely narrow window of time to get aboard that plane, and you cut it far too close.” He cut his eyes at him again. “I realize it wasn’t your idea. And I might be inclined to look the other way, but you need to think with your brain, Rogers. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” said Steve, utterly confused. Hadn’t Phillips been driving the car himself? But asking for clarification would almost certainly lead to a much longer meeting, and Phillips seemed to feel that the matter, whatever it was, was closed, so he shook it off. He wanted to see Peggy.

Peggy was in a briefing, but she came up behind him quietly in the mess hall when he’d given up and gone to find lunch. “I hear you don’t remember what happened on the Valkyrie.” She glanced at him, half through her lashes, and he felt the familiar crackling of electromagnetic energy that had flashed between the two of them right from the start.

“Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat. “Guess I got conked pretty hard on the head. I remember the hangar and the car, but - everything’s a blank after that.”

Peggy’s answering smile nearly made him forget his own name. “Well, I hope Phillips didn’t dress you down too badly about - about the car. I’m afraid that was entirely my fault. I made the decision rather suddenly, and there wasn’t time to consult you.”

“Phillips likes to grumble,” said Steve with a shrug, wondering again why Phillips had been driving the car in the first place if he thought it was such a bad idea.

“Yes, well,” said Peggy, flushing a little. “We did nearly go over the cliff, and then he’s had to run some interference, with your compass appearing on that newsreel and then the number of high-ranking people who’ve now heard us make a date to go dancing. And of course, he can't really pretend he didn't - ” She cleared her throat. “Phillips said they played you the recording?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Thank you,” he added, a little awkwardly, and she looked confused. He cleared his throat. “for what you said when I was - ” He swallowed. Despite their not-entirely-unspoken understanding, he still sometimes got ridiculously tongue-tied around her. “We don’t have to go dancing,” he said in a rush.

“Oh,” she said, freezing, and he could see her defenses go up.

“It’s just - I don’t mind keeping things like they were, for now. We don’t have to - just because you - ” he stammered, but this clearly didn’t have the reassuring effect he was looking for, because he was suddenly reminded of the expression on her face when she’d shot at his shield.

“I see,” she said, a little too calmly. She glanced at her watch. “Well, I’m due at a briefing in a few minutes. I suppose I’ll see you later, Captain.” And before he could figure out how to ask her what was wrong, she was gone.  

And that was that. He could tell he’d hurt her, but she refused to discuss it, or even to admit that anything was wrong, and she managed so successfully to avoid him for the rest of the war that he realized, only too late, how much of their professional as well as their personal interaction had been due to her deliberate scheduling.

\-----

Shortly after the war, Peggy transferred to the SSR office in New York while Steve stayed in Europe with the Howling Commandos. They saw each other once, carefully cordial to each other on a joint mission to a Leviathan-run facility in Belarus, and then not again until the Howling Commandos were sent home and Steve found himself working for the SSR at a desk so close to hers that he could hit her with a paper airplane, if he’d been so inclined.

They didn’t stay frostily polite to each other for long. Although Steve still wasn’t quite sure what had happened, it had been long enough that the initial sting had gone out of things, and he and Peggy had always worked well together. They were an unstoppable team in the field, practically able to read each other’s minds when it came to tactics and fights.

Steve just wished he could read her mind the rest of the time too.

\-----

_Christmas, 1946_

“Don’t look now,” Peggy breathed into Steve’s ear as they stood at the coat check in a queue full of holiday revelers. “Howard Stark, ten o’clock. Blast, he’s spotted us.” She gave a tiny shake of her head, and Howard smoothly turned a cheerful wave into a snatch at a glass of champagne from a passing waiter.

“What’s he doing here?” Steve wondered out loud, and Peggy gave him a mildly incredulous look.

“This is the Stork Club. He’s here to do what he does best.” She made a face. “Or, I suppose, one of the things he does best,” she conceded, with a tiny glance at the button on Steve’s shirt collar that was industriously broadcasting everything it heard to the surveillance van outside. Steve nodded, glancing at the sparkling brooch on her dress that served a similar function.

The plan was relatively simple. Peggy and Steve were to enter the Stork Club, enjoy a few cocktails and increasingly inebriated-seeming dances, and then sneak off, ostensibly to find somewhere to be alone together. In reality, of course, they’d be searching the back offices of the club for a small vacuum-sealed vial of a particularly nasty Leviathan-developed nerve toxin.

With luck they’d be able to intercept it without detection, and the SSR scientists would be able to develop an antidote before another batch made its way to New York and was used against them, or worse, innocent civilians.

If their luck ran out - well, that was why Sousa and Ramirez were waiting in the van.

The seriousness of the mission aside, Peggy was certain that Chief Thompson had arranged its details for his own amusement. She and Steve did make an excellent team, but nothing spread faster than gossip, and everyone knew there was a failed romance of some sort in their past. It was exactly like Jack to pair them up on an assignment like this. She was fairly certain he didn’t know the significance of the Stork Club itself, didn’t have the clearance to, but as he so often did, he’d managed to hit a nerve without even realizing it.

Peggy was also quite certain that Thompson had taken delight in assigning Sousa, who was widely known to have a colossal unrequited crush on Peggy, to monitor the situation in the van. Peggy herself wasn’t particularly in the market for romance, not having quite managed to fall out of love with Steve, but it was just like Jack to make Sousa listen to the two of them exchange sweet nothings all evening in the line of duty.

Settling a vacant, dreamy smile on her face, Peggy gazed at the tinsel along the edge of the coat check counter, trying to imagine how she could possibly feel less enthusiastic about this evening. She imagined Steve felt the same, just as she was certain he was every bit as uncomfortably aware as she was of how close together they were standing, her arm looped through his possessively. His touch still sent warmth rushing through her body despite her best efforts at ignoring it. It wasn’t easy, working with him.

It was clear, in retrospect, that she shouldn’t have waited so long to kiss him. If she’d done it after he’d returned with the missing men of the 107th, or when she’d found him sketching in the rain after his last, disastrous USO performance, or even earlier back in America - either before or after the serum - then the whole thing probably wouldn’t have hurt so much.

And then, to top it all off, when she’d finally taken the plunge she’d taken complete leave of her senses and kissed him on top of a bloody car in front of Colonel Phillips. She really couldn’t have bared her soul or declared her intentions any more clearly if she’d planned it.

The kiss itself had necessarily been short and rather chaste, but she’d felt it all through her body, a breathtaking ignition of all the longing she’d been suppressing since she’d first met Dr. Erskine’s skinny, defiant recruit back at Camp Lehigh. They’d nearly lost him in the Valkyrie, and when he’d returned to London she’d been ready, quite frankly, to drag him into a storage closet and have her way with him right then and there, if she’d thought they could get away with it.

But - he hadn’t felt the same way. It seemed the spark hadn’t been there for him after all, when they’d finally kissed. He’d forgotten the Valkyrie, she knew, but he remembered the car. And if he, who had only been waiting for her to say the word, didn’t want to move their relationship forward after _that_ kiss - well. Peggy knew when to cut her losses.

True, he hadn’t broken it off outright, but - Steve did tend rather tend towards too much courtesy when rejecting romantic overtures. There were four dents in his shield that spoke to _that_. And Peggy had far too much pride to allow herself to be strung along by someone who didn’t actually want her.

They finally reached the counter and deposited their coats. With a lingering, appreciative glance at Peggy’s cleavage, Steve made a detour to the bar, while Peggy made her way to one of the few empty tables and sat down, idly watching Howard turning on the charm at his table across the room as the band segued smoothly from one Christmas tune to another. When Steve arrived with the drinks, she knocked hers back rather quickly.

Steve raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think you’re supposed to make it look like you need to fortify yourself before dancing with me,” he said quietly.

“Perhaps I’m worried you’ll step on my toes,” she muttered, and then regretted it, because she could see from his eyes that this wasn’t easy for him either. She took a deep breath. “Or perhaps,” she added, smiling at him and covering his hand with one of hers, “I’ve had a hard day at the phone company, and I need to be distracted.”

He was watching her like he used to before the Valkyrie. “Then, what are we waiting for?” he asked, an odd catch in his voice, and she closed her eyes against the sudden pang.

“Nothing,” she said, taking a deep breath, then opening her eyes and smiling at him again. “Nothing at all.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Ironically, Steve thought as they swept around the dance floor, he hadn’t stepped on Peggy’s toes once. He’d learned to dance since the war, had become quite good at it, but despite the best efforts of Howard and the Commandos, it never went further than a dance. He just - he was still in love with Peggy. Maybe he always would be, and he’d die alone, surrounded by willing girls he couldn’t bring himself to be even slightly interested in dating.

Just for a moment, he allowed himself to imagine that the tiny catch in Peggy’s breath when he gathered her closer was real. He knew it wasn’t, but it was far, far too easy for him to act in a way that gave observers the impression that he wanted to sneak off to continue their dance in a bit more privacy upstairs.

“What do you think?” he breathed into her ear, trying valiantly not to enjoy the feeling of her body tucked against his, swaying in perfect time to the band. “Can we slip away, or should we have another round of drinks first?” He raised his eyebrows. “You drank those first three pretty fast. I don’t know if - ”

“You know perfectly well I can hold my liquor better than anyone but you,” she said, pulling back a little to brush her fingers along his cheek, “but yes, Peggy from the phone company is rather sozzled. And it seems the Stork Club has provided us with a moment of serendipity.” Puzzled, he followed her eyes upward to where a sprig of mistletoe dangled almost directly over their heads, then gaped at her as she drunkenly pulled him down by the lapel, an unreadable expression on her eyes, and kissed him soundly.

It - it felt like a memory, although he knew for a fact that they’d never kissed before. Her lips brushing against his, slightly parted, the breathless little sigh, the way heat flooded through his entire body and he was left staring, slack-jawed, as she pulled away.

She looked a little like she wanted to slam him against the nearest table and have her way with him, and a part of him was thrilled to see her in action, in her element, the SSR’s most successful wartime spy. The rest of him was trying very hard to remind himself that this was all an act.

“All right, darling, let’s continue this someplace a bit more private,” she murmured, and tugged him urgently through the crowd toward the back hallway that led to the washrooms and the staircase to the upstairs offices. Steve firmly ignored Howard Stark’s amused eyebrow as they passed him. He’d explain later, although they’d still both probably never hear the end of it. Then again, he thought as Peggy gave a quick, inebriated-looking glance around and then tugged him up the stairs, Howard probably recognized the brooch and knew exactly what was going on.

Once it became clear there was nobody else in the upstairs hallway, Peggy dropped Steve’s hand and retreated to a professional distance. “All right,” she said, briskly, peering at the name plates on the doors. “It would be more efficient to split up, but it would be difficult to claim we’d come up here to make time together if we were discovered in separate rooms.” She gestured. “Shall we start with Mr. Graves, our suspected neurotoxin hoarder?”

Graves’ office was unlocked, empty, and very, very cluttered. It was evident that this was going to take a while, even with Steve’s ability to search a room considerably faster than the average SSR agent. “It bloody well better be here,” Peggy muttered as she opened the first desk drawer. “This is going to take hours.”

They’d been searching fruitlessly for nearly twenty minutes when Steve heard voices on the stairs. “Hang on, I hear something,” he said, and Peggy froze, listening along with him.

“Let’s get into the cupboard to be safe,” she said in a low voice, shutting the drawer she’d been searching and pulling Steve after her into the coat closet. It was quite deep but didn’t have a door, and they had to squeeze together in the back corner behind a long black overcoat. Steve tried very hard to focus on the fact that they were in danger of discovery, but Peggy’s hair smelled incredible, her body was warm and curvy against his, and - oh God.

Her breath caught, and he pulled back as far as he could in the confined space, which really only made things worse. He opened his mouth to apologize just as she turned her head, and she made a tiny, quickly-stifled sound as he somehow managed to catch her earlobe between his lips. He stared at her, mortified, and she let out a slow breath and shifted a little to the side, wedging herself slightly more decorously against his hipbone as they both listened intently to the sounds outside the office door.

There seemed to be two people, a man and a woman, who from the sound of things had come upstairs for the same reason Peggy and Steve ostensibly had. Thankfully, they disappeared with a gasp and a giggle into one of the other offices, closing the door with an audible click behind them, and Peggy cautiously peered around the overcoat before motioning to Steve to follow her back into the office.

“We heard voices in the corridor,” Peggy was explaining quietly into her brooch, and Steve felt his face go even hotter as he remembered that Sousa and Ramirez were hearing all of this too. “But they’ve gone into one of the other offices.” She cleared her throat. “They seem rather occupied. We’re resuming our search.”

She didn’t look at Steve as they picked up where they’d left off, but her cheeks were flushed pink and her pupils looked enormous in the dim light. Well, he thought, he was pretty sure he was bright red himself.

Fifteen minutes later he found it, hidden in a hollowed out copy of an Agatha Christie novel on one of the bookshelves. “Peg,” he whispered, holding up the palm-sized cylinder. Peggy smiled, a genuine smile, and they set about replacing the last few items they’d disturbed. Finished, she ran a hand through her hair, loosening a few strands and pinning them back up somewhat less expertly, tugging the neckline of her dress a little off-centre.

Steve, catching on after a moment, ran a hand through his own hair and rumpled his shirt collar, then set his tie slightly askew. Peggy regarded him critically, then without warning leaned forward and brushed a bright smear of lipstick across his collar. For a moment it was all he could do to keep breathing, which was probably why he didn’t hear the sound of footsteps in the hallway until he and Peggy both jumped at the sound of the doorknob turning. They stared at each other for a long second.

Without further hesitation, Peggy reached out and pulled him down on top of her on the desk. “Garter holster. Left leg. Under the elastic,” she murmured, then let out a breathy moan he was pretty sure he was going to remember for the rest of his life. He froze for a second, then slid his hand up under her skirt, feeling for the elastic. He could hear footsteps behind them, stopping abruptly as whoever it was caught sight of them. There was a loud throat-clearing sound.

Peggy was good. If Steve didn’t know better, he would have sworn the sharp intake of air she made as his fingers brushed over the bare skin at the top of her stocking was as real as the stutter in his own breath as his hand found the garter. He slid the cylinder under the elastic beside the gun. “Now what?” he breathed against her ear, as she gave a long, shuddering gasp.

“Stop a second, honey” she burst out breathlessly, in a tipsy American accent that reminded Steve oddly of pie, before he realized suddenly that it belonged to her roommate Angie, who often worked the lunch shift at the L&L Automat. “I thought I heard something.” She braced herself up on her hands and glanced over his shoulder, then sat bolt upright and pushed him away. “Oh, hi,” she said to whoever had come in, somehow contriving to look both dreadfully embarrassed and almost entirely unrepentant.

Steve picked up Peggy’s evening bag and held it casually in front of him before he turned around. God, sometimes he really missed his shield.

The security guard in front of them gave him a withering look. “What is it tonight, a full moon? Go tickle the ol’ pickle in your own office, pal. Or better yet, get a room.”

Peggy was smoothing down her dress. “Sorry,” she said contritely. “Guess we got carried away. Gosh the booze here is pretty strong, isn’t it?”

The guard sighed. “I’m afraid you’ll both have to leave the premises,” he said wearily, and followed them closely as they walked down the stairs and across the crowded dance floor to the coat check, Howard giving Steve a subtle smirk and thumbs-up at they passed.

The coat check girl grinned at them. “You two get caught upstairs too? Geez, seems like there’s something in the air tonight. Gotta take down some of that mistletoe.” She handed them their coats with a wink. “Well, have yourselves a nice night!”

Peggy took Steve’s arm as they walked out the heavy front door into the cold night. “Do you think someone else is after the toxin?” he asked, slowly, contemplating what the coat check girl had said. “Or are there really just that many couples sneaking up to, uh -”

“Quite possibly both,” said Peggy, thoughtfully. “At any rate, the more traffic the less suspicion on us in particular. The whole thing actually went rather well,” she added, as they walked the half block to the alley where the van was waiting.

Steve gave her a sidelong glance. “For certain definitions of well.”

She smiled at him, and just for a moment, he almost forgot himself and kissed her. “At least now you can tell your friends you were kicked out of the Stork Club,” she said. “Even Howard doesn’t have that distinction.”

\-----

“Did you get it?” asked Sousa, anxiously, as Peggy and Steve climbed into the van. As soon as they were inside, Ramirez started the engine and pulled away, taking a slightly circuitous route back to the SSR office, in case they’d been followed.

“Yes,” said Peggy, turning away to reach under the skirt of her dress and pull the cylinder out of the elastic. She handed it carefully to Sousa, who didn’t quite meet her eye as he took it and slid it into the containment box the lab had prepared.

Peggy felt suddenly, intensely irritated. As an SSR agent, Daniel was well aware of the necessity for undercover operations, and she rather doubted he would have complained if he’d been in Steve’s place. And he had no claim on her in any case, although she felt nearly restless and electrified enough at the moment to take him up on his standing offer for a drink, quite possibly foregoing the drink entirely.

Almost, but not quite. She didn’t want Daniel. She wanted Steve.

She removed the broach and stowed it away with the rest of the surveillance equipment, very carefully not watching as Steve stripped down and did the same with his wired-up shirt, slipping on the regular one he’d left in the van. Someone was going to have to hand wash the lipstick stains out of the collar, she thought with grim satisfaction.

“Well, this is the most awkward party I’ve been to in years,” came a sardonic voice from the corner, and Peggy jumped, genuinely startled. Colonel Phillips snorted. “You’re all so busy not looking at each other you totally missed me, eh?”

Peggy had, indeed, entirely failed to notice that he was there, and her irritation at herself was very suddenly superseded by concern. “You’re supposed to be in DC,” she said, sitting up straight. “Is there something wrong?”

Phillips shot her a baleful look. “No, I just spent an hour in the back of a van listening to you and Rogers play tickle-tail for the fun of it. Didn’t get enough of watching you mentally undressing each other all through the war.”

Peggy watched Steve turn bright red. “It was the only way to hide the cylinder in time,” she said, feeling her own cheeks flush. “You know we aren’t actually - ”

Phillips snorted. “I don’t know what the hell is up with you two, Carter, but that whole thing sounded about as fake as that kiss you planted on Rogers just before he jumped onto Schmidt’s plane. Nearly sent us off the cliff. I still don’t know what the hell you were thinking.”

“Wait, what?” asked Steve, staring at Phillips, then at Peggy. “You - what?”

Peggy and Phillips stared back at Steve. “What do you mean, I what?” asked Peggy, carefully, suddenly acutely conscious that Sousa was listening, very hard.

“You - you kissed me in the car?” asked Steve. “How the hell was there time for that?”

There was a long silence.

“Steve, what, specifically, is the last thing you remember before waking up in Iceland?” asked Peggy, feeling a little like she was underwater, and finding that she didn’t particularly care what Daniel thought about the whole affair.

Steve rubbed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “You two pulling up in the car. I figured it was pretty obvious what must have happened next.”

“Bloody Nora, Steve!” Peggy found herself momentarily at a loss for further words. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Phillips staring at them both in utter incredulity.

“I probably don’t want to know,” he said, slowly, “But what the hell did you think I was lecturing you about when I debriefed you, Rogers?”

“I - ” Steve’s brain seemed to have stalled.

Phillips snorted. “How on earth you two are so competent at intelligence work, I’ll never understand.” He looked at his watch. “But, as fascinating as this all may be, time is ticking away. Believe it or not, I’m here for a reason.”

With a heroic effort, Peggy shoved everything aside and took several deep breaths. “Yes. Sorry, sir. What’s happening?” She could see Steve similarly setting his shoulders, and no, she couldn’t think about Steve just now.

“I need you two to come with me,” Phillips said, nodding at Peggy and Steve. “Sousa and Ramirez are going back to the office to report that your mission was a failure. You weren’t able to retrieve the vial, and you went directly home. You’ll file your reports Monday morning.”

Peggy and Steve exchanged a mystified glance, and Peggy was glad to see that their professional rapport, at least, was still functioning.

The van stopped, and Phillips nodded at Sousa. “You have your orders. Not a word.”

Daniel nodded, looking rather dazed, and held out the containment box. Peggy sighed. “How will you explain where the box disappeared to?”

“Right,” he said, blinking, and removed the sample, handing it to Peggy and then replacing the containment box in its spot in the van.

Phillips took the sample from Peggy, his lips twitching a little. “Don’t worry, son,” he said, “You’re not the first to develop a crush on Carter, and you won’t be the last. Rogers here is the only one I ever saw get anywhere with her, though. And we all know how well that went.”


	3. Chapter 3

Ramirez dropped Peggy, Steve, and Phillips off on a nondescript street Peggy didn’t immediately recognize, where Phillips led them to a waiting black sedan. “Get in,” said Phillips, shortly, handing the sample to the driver, and Peggy and Steve exchanged a look as they slid into the back seat. “You remember Agent Robbins, formerly of the OSS,” Phillips said, turning sideways and glancing back at them. “After I’ve briefed you, he’ll be taking the sample back to the DC lab for processing.”

“Nice to see you again,” Robbins called back, pulling the car into traffic.

Phillips twisted around in his seat to face them. “So,” he said. “We have a situation.”

“Yes,” said Peggy, leaning forward. “Sir, it certainly won’t be the first time I’ve had to feign incompetence for the greater good, but I would rather like to know why I’m doing it.”

“Is Thompson under investigation?” asked Steve, hopefully. He was sitting about as far on his side of the car as possible, as was Peggy on her own.

Phillips snorted. “The guy’s an ass, I know, but that’s no reason to plot his downfall.” He raised his eyebrows. “Unless you’ve got some basis for that accusation, in which case I’d be interested to know what it is. We’re still gathering evidence.”

“Wait, he is?” asked Steve, sitting up straight, in the process moving a tiny bit closer to Peggy.

Phillips nodded. “Seems he’s in the pocket of some political pals of his father’s, bunch of rich old men who think they can use the SSR as their own private agency. Call themselves the Arena Club.” He cleared his throat. “We’re not quite ready to move on him, but we can’t risk them getting their hands on the toxin.”

Peggy immediately opened her mouth, and Phillips shook his head. “No, you two need to keep out of this. You’re too close to the situation and Thompson’s not an idiot.” He sighed. “We’re going to have quite a mess to clean up. But, on the bright side, your lives are about to get a lot more interesting.”

Peggy was unable to stop herself from darting a quick glance at Steve, and Phillips snorted again. “I didn’t mean your personal lives. I’m staying far away from that mess.”  He leaned forward and rummaged around near his feet, retrieving a locked briefcase. “Once we’ve moved on Thompson, Sousa will be temporarily appointed chief of the New York office,” he said, as he opened the briefcase.

Peggy felt a renewed flash of irritation. Knowing one’s own value was all well and good, but every once in a while, a little external validation would not be entirely unwelcome. Although, she supposed, this put a rather different spin on some of Daniel’s awkwardness around her in the van.

Phillips was watching her with an odd expression, as if he were trying to hide a smile. “I’ve got something else in mind for you two,” he said, handing them each a file.

“Thank you,” Peggy said automatically, then frowned, looking at the cover. “This is above my security clearance.”

Phillips grinned. “Not anymore. Stark and I have been working on something. A new international intelligence agency, a replacement for the SSR. We’re calling it SHIELD. I want you both in on the ground floor.”

Steve gave him a cautious look. “Why SHIELD?”

“Don’t ask me. Stark came up with it,” said Phillips, waving his hand dismissively. “The name doesn’t matter. The important thing is, the SSR is a wartime agency. It’s not built for the postwar world, and it’s way overdue for decommission. But we can’t just shut it down without a replacement. Hydra might be gone, but that sure as hell doesn’t mean we’ve run out of enemies.”

Peggy leafed through the file, peering at the contents by the dim illumination of the street lights they were passing. “I don’t disagree, but why are you - ”

Phillips shot her an inscrutable look. “I want you to run it, Carter.”

She stared at Phillips, her mouth open. “You - what?”

“You heard me,” he said. “I didn’t stare down four senators and a whole barrel of ambassadors who didn’t want a woman in charge just for the fun of it. You’re the best person for the job. You’re smart as hell, you’re the best damn agent the SSR’s got, you’re a natural leader, and you’ll never let the power go to your head.”

Peggy glanced involuntarily at Steve, and Phillips grinned. “Yeah, Rogers here is pretty incorruptible too, I’ll give you that. But he’s nowhere near sneaky enough to run a spy agency, and besides, I don’t think he’d actually want the job.”

“No,” agreed Steve, who was smiling widely at her across the back seat. He reached over and squeezed her arm, and she was frozen for a moment by a wave of desire entirely inappropriate to the situation. She took a slow breath and turned back to Phillips, who simply shook his head and gave them both a familiar long-suffering look.

“In the meantime, keep your heads down, both of you. The less you know about the investigation into Thompson the better. Read the files, talk to Stark. Decide if you want the job. Rogers too, we want your expertise in developing the tactical strike division. Got a few meetings in town, so I’ll be here a few days. I’ll be in touch.”

Peggy and Steve both nodded.

“All right,” said Phillips, to Robbins. “Get that sample back to DC. There’ll be plenty of opportunity for Leviathan to take advantage of all the confusion coming up.”

Robbins nodded. “Where should I drop you?” he asked Peggy and Steve.

They exchanged a glance, and Peggy suddenly didn’t have the energy to pretend they weren’t almost certain to wind up in the same place by the end of the evening. “My flat is bigger, and more secure.” And, she didn’t add, as roommates went, Angie generally had a far better sense of when to clear out than Bucky did.

\-----

Steve had never been to Peggy’s apartment, but he knew she and Angie lived in one of Howard’s properties, so he wasn’t shocked when Robbins let them out on a street Peggy would never in a million years be able to afford on her SSR salary.

“I owe her at least that much,” Howard had said simply, when Steve had asked him about it. “And don’t look at me like that, Rogers. Not sure it’s any of your business these days, but Peg and I like each other far too much for a meaningless roll in the hay, and not nearly enough for anything more serious.” His lips had twitched. “To put it in terms I know you’ll understand, we don’t fondue, my friend.”

Angie was curled up in one of the chairs in the living room, reading a book by the light of a single lamp. The rest of the room was dim, presumably to display the lights of the Christmas tree to better effect. She looked up as Peggy and Steve entered. “Oh, hi,” she said, and Steve was suddenly, viscerally, reminded of Peggy borrowing her accent earlier at the Stork Club. Angie looked from him to Peggy and raised her eyebrows.

Peggy’s cheeks were noticeably flushed. “Angie, you know Steve Rogers. Something has - actually, several things have happened. He and I need to - ”

Angie frowned. “You okay, English?”

Peggy nodded. “Steve, would you give us a moment, please?” she asked, motioning to Angie to join her in the kitchen. Steve nodded, standing awkwardly in the living room staring at the tree, not entirely sure whether he should sit down.

“How much have you had to drink?” Angie demanded as soon as the door had closed behind them. Steve tried half-heartedly not to eavesdrop, but he knew Peggy knew perfectly well he could hear them clearly at this distance.

“Not enough to require rescuing,” said Peggy. “But thank you.”

“You sure?” asked Angie.

There was the sound of chairs scuffing on the floor, then creaking slightly as Peggy and Angie presumably sat down. “I’m fine,” Peggy said. “I’m not even slightly tipsy. I know what I’m doing.”

“Right,” said Angie. “You said - ”

Peggy sighed. “I know what I said. And I appreciate your support. I - I can’t explain at the moment, but several rather important and unexpected things have happened this evening, and Steve and I very badly need to talk about them.”

“Talk,” echoed Angie, skeptically.

Steve could hear the tiny smile creeping into Peggy’s voice. “Shout at each other for quite some time, probably.”

“Right,” said Angie again, but she sounded like she was smiling a little now too. “Okay, if you’re sure. You want me to clear out for a bit? I could go put in an appearance at Carol’s party after all.”

“You don’t have to,” said Peggy, “but - ”

“Seems like things’ll be a lot less awkward if I do,” said Angie, frankly. “I’ll go get ready. You hang tight. No fighting or, uh, anything else until I’m gone.”

There was a short pause and Steve could hear the shuffle of chairs again, and then a quiet rustling. “You’re a good friend, Angie,” said Peggy, slightly muffled, and Angie snorted.

“I can’t believe I’m clearing out so my roommate can make time with Captain America.”  

 


	4. Chapter 4

The USO dancers had always been able to get ready to go out for the evening remarkably quickly, and Angie appeared to share their skill at fast backstage costume changes because she was ready before Peggy was finished making tea. She came into the living room and gave Steve a long, scrutinizing look. “Are _you_ gonna tell me what’s going on?”

Steve blinked at her, but was spared the need to answer by Peggy coming through the kitchen door, the tea tray in her hands. “Tea,” she said, “and a civilized discussion.”

“Right,” said Angie, throwing her hands up in surrender. “I’ll let you get on with it then.” She got her coat and purse. “Once my cab gets here, I’ll be out of your hair. Carol’s parties usually go pretty late.” She looked between the two of them. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she added, more awkwardly than Steve had ever heard her.

While Angie moved to the door to wait for the cab, Peggy took both folders Phillips had given them and went off to stash them in her office safe, returning to sit down on the sofa, a polite distance away from Steve. Once Angie had disappeared out the door with one final, searching look at the two of them, they sat staring at each other silently in the dim lights of the Christmas tree.

“I don’t quite know where to begin,” said Peggy finally.

Steve nodded. “Yeah.” They sat in silence for a bit longer, and then he shrugged. “We could always talk about how much that jerk Thompson deserves a good investigation.”

Peggy smiled. “You know, I might actually miss clashing swords with him.” She set down her tea. “Did you know I knocked him out in an alley, once, while you were still in Europe?”

“I’ve sure as hell thought about it often enough,” said Steve, and they grinned at each other. He briefly squeezed her forearm. “Peg, nobody deserves to lead the new agency more than you do. And I hope you know I’ll always be proud to serve under you, no matter what happens between us personally.”

Peggy smiled, picking up her tea again. “I know. And thank you.” She sighed. “You may be among a select few who feel that way.”

“But you’re taking the job?” he asked, and she nodded.

“I’ll have to read over the file, but - yes, I expect so. I don’t fancy taking orders from Sousa any more than I do from Thompson. And Phillips is right, you know. I am the best person for the job.”

They exchanged a sudden grin. Peggy’s complete lack of false modesty was one of the things he’d always loved about her, and she knew it. Their gaze locked and held.

Peggy set down her tea. “Kiss me,” she said, suddenly.

He blinked. “Now?”

She nodded, her colour high, and he slid over closer to her and reached to cup her face in both hands, leaning in to brush his lips against hers. After a moment she sighed and parted her lips, bringing her hands up against his chest to loosely clutch the material of his shirt. By the time they broke apart they were both a little breathless.

She looked at him. “Well?”

“Well, what?” he asked, dazed.

“Well,” she said, carefully, “if you’d remembered doing that just before you jumped aboard the Valkyrie, would you have tried to renege on our dance afterwards?”

He stared at her, blinking. “Is that why you - ”

“You told me you remembered the car, but you didn’t want things to move forward between us,” she said, fiercely. “What was I supposed to think?”

“That I was clearly talking out of my hat,” he said, indignant. “I shouldn’t have assumed nothing important happened in the car, but - Peg, you should have realized I’d obviously missed something. You knew how I felt about you.”

“I knew how you’d felt about me before the kiss,” she said quietly.

Steve closed his eyes. “Peg, I thought you’d only made the date because we both thought I wasn’t going to - ” He opened them. “It wasn’t like we could really go to the Stork Club!”

There were tears in her eyes. “Yes, there was some of that. But once you survived after all, I thought - ”

Steve raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “Well, how was I supposed to know you’d suddenly decided to take the plunge in the middle of one of the most important operations of the entire war? In front of Colonel Phillips! What the hell, Peggy?”  

Peggy’s eyes flashed. “Well, how was I supposed to know,” she asked icily, “that you’d managed to endure an entire dressing-down from Phillips without either of you once mentioning, or asking, what in the bloody hell you were being reprimanded for. For God’s sake, Steve.”

“Well, you sure gave up on us awfully fast afterwards,” he snapped. “You didn’t even ask why - ”

Peggy leaned forward, calm in her fury. “If you were rejecting me after a kiss like that, there really wasn’t any bloody point in - ”

“God, Peggy, I wasn’t rejecting you!”

They stared at each other, breathing hard, and then suddenly she was on top of him, kissing him ferociously. “Just think about it,” she said fiercely, between increasingly heated kisses. “we could have been doing this since you got back to London after the Valkyrie. Almost two years, Steve.” She bit his lip hard, letting out a muffled groan against his mouth as he brought his hand up to cup one of her breasts through the green silk.

“Well you’re just as much to blame for that as I am,” he insisted, as she arched against him. “After all that talk about distraction and regulations and reputation, you seriously just planted one on me right in the middle of a battle?”

“Yes!” she said, probably somewhat louder than she’d meant to, and Steve grinned and repeated the movement of his thumb. Peggy kissed him again, fiercely, unceremoniously tugging his shirt out of his waistband and slipping her hands inside to map the bare skin beneath.

“I hope you weren’t this handsy in front of Phillips,” he murmured against her jawline, sliding his other hand up under her skirt to trace the bare skin just below the holster.

“No,” she said, suddenly hoarse, “but it was probably lucky we were balanced on top of a moving car, and there wasn’t a great deal of time.” Her fingers were lingering at the spot where she’d touched his bare chest once before, when he’d first emerged from Erskine’s capsule, and they both let out a soft breath.

“We aren’t on a car now,” he said.

Their eyes met, and suddenly they were scrambling, frantic and clumsy in their haste. Peggy pulled him down on top of her along the length of the couch, her skirt hiked high, and gracelessly tugged his wrist up past the holster to where his fingers met warm cloth. A shudder ran through his whole body, and she made an incoherent, hungry noise in her throat.

He curved his fingers experimentally and she squirmed hard against him, her own fingers moving to fumble with his belt buckle.

“Just rip my knickers off. Quickly,” she ordered in a low, throaty voice, as she yanked open the belt and slipped her hand inside his shorts and - oh, she - ah - he reached his other hand up under her skirt and tore the cloth apart in one loud, satisfying wrench, and she tightened her grip on him almost convulsively.

“God, Peggy,” he gasped, with an involuntary thrust into her hand, and she arched her back and bit his lip again, writhing against him restlessly as she freed him from his shorts and guided him into position.

“Ready?” she asked, and he thrust forward without hesitation and - oh God, nothing could have prepared him for this. Peggy, warm and curvy beneath him. The silk of her dress and the roughness of her garters and the warmth of her breath and the softness of her lips and the slippery tumble of their bodies, settling into an urgent rhythm. Neither of them was making any effort to stay quiet, and when, remembering Bucky’s long-ago advice, he slipped a hand tight between their bodies, Peggy actually whimpered.

She was breathing in little cries, her fingers digging into his shoulder blades, and he could feel his own climax rushing towards him. He tried, desperately to hold it off until - oh - he wasn’t going to be able to stop it - but she was shattering too, and they fell into oblivion together.

They stayed like that for a long time, Steve shifting sideways a little so his weight wasn’t entirely on top of her, but neither of them moving otherwise as they caught their breaths, still tightly pressed together, breathing and heartbeats gradually slowing. Peggy was wrapped around him, relaxed but strong. He hadn't known it was possible to feel so close to her.

Finally, she stirred a little and kissed the hinge of his jaw, which was probably, he guessed, the only place she could reach without moving her head. “Crikey O'Reilly, Rogers. I should have kissed you immediately at Camp Lehigh.”

“No, you were right, we probably would have lost the war,” he said, and she laughed.

“Maybe so.” One of her hands skated up his back and into his hair. “Even now it’s rather fortunate that we’ve been ordered to stay away from the SSR until Monday.” She kissed him again, and shifted against him a little, and his breath caught.

“Angie’s not going to be out all night,” he reminded her.

Peggy laughed again. “Might I remind you, Rogers, that I have a large private bedroom with a ridiculously comfortable bed, which we'd be in together, naked, right now if either of us had an ounce of patience.” She craned her neck to kiss his lips. “Stay tonight.”

“I - ah - okay,” Steve said eloquently. How was it possible that he was still tongue-tied around her? He could feel her smiling to herself against his skin as her hands meandered through his hair. “Peg?” he asked.

“Mmm?”

“Want to go dancing tomorrow night? Keep that date for real?” He cleared his throat. “Maybe not at the Stork Club.”

She laughed out loud. “We may not be welcome there. But I would like very much to go dancing with you.” She looked at him through her eyelashes. “But only if you take me home with you afterwards.”

He kissed her. “My bed probably isn’t as nice as yours,” he warned, and she smiled, wriggling out from under him and standing up, pausing to extract her now-useless underwear from her left ankle. She leaned forward and held out a hand.

“You haven’t seen my bed yet, soldier.” She grinned. “Or the rest of me.”

“I love you,” he said, startling himself by saying it out loud.

“Well yes,” she said, matter-of-factly, pulling him up. “I love you too.” She stepped in closer. “I certainly tried not to. But it seems to be rather a permanent condition.”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice thick.

She kissed him. “Cheer up, Rogers, I assure you there are far worse people to be stuck with.” He smiled against her lips and brought his hands up to tangle in her hair. She made a tiny noise of alarm and deftly caught the waistband of his pants a moment before they would have slid off his hips.

“I guess we do make a pretty good team,” he conceded, and she laughed before backing him against the wall of the hallway and kissing him again, her hands wandering shamelessly, letting the pants drop to the floor after all.

“Bedroom,” he reminded her. “Angie will be - ”

“For God’s sake, stop talking about Angie, Steve.” Peggy's voice suggested that she meant it, and he was suddenly reminded of those dents in his shield.

“Yes, ma'am” he grinned, and bent down to pull up his pants, sweeping her into a fireman’s carry as he straightened up. “Where to?”

“Third door on the left,” she said, her voice a little strangled.

It was possible, he considered as he carried her to bed, that he wasn’t nearly as bad at reading Peggy’s mind as he’d thought he was.

 


End file.
